"The Baptismal Life" - Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

The Baptismal Life
Easter 7 – Narrative Lectionary 1
May 17, 2015
Grace, Mankato, MN
Romans 6.1-14

When I meet with parents about baptizing children, I like to ask why we baptize and what baptism means. I do this so I can get a feel for where people are at in their understanding. Besides, it saves me from giving a lecture and doing all of the talking. As you can imagine, I get various answers. One answer I get the most is that through baptism we are being accepted into God’s family. Sometimes I hear that baptism is cleansing from sin. One response I used to get but not so much anymore is that baptism prevents us from going to hell.

Somewhere during the talk I used to say in a dramatic fashion, “We’re going to kill your child Sunday.” Of course, this is a reference to Romans 6 which we read today. I don’t say this anymore because I learned that one dad got really irate and barely restrained himself from pounding the snot out of me. So, I just tell the story and hope it gets the point across without the threat of pounding part. It’s a good thing that dad wasn’t Eastern Orthodox or he would have really gone ballistic at the baptism. Orthodox priests take buck-naked babies and plunge them fully into the font and sometimes by their heels even. And they do this three times! This dramatically demonstrates dying to sin and rising to new life.

So far in Romans, Paul the apostle and writer has just laid out a tour de force of a theological argument about God’s grace. No matter how deep, pervasive and powerful sin is in the world, Paul says, God’s grace is far more powerful. But after this sustained argument, he anticipates a question from his readers: “So, it really doesn’t matter what we do; we can just keep on sinning, right?” To which he responds emphatically, “Heck no!” Paul then continues to unpack the implications of God’s grace through baptism. Baptism is not just a little bit of water that gets us done and into heaven; it ushers us into a new reality. Because of what Christ did and because we are baptized into Christ, baptism not only alters our past and future it alters our present.

We all understand, if only intuitively, that God’s grace through baptism alters our past. Our brokenness and estrangement from God have been washed away. I think we all understand that baptism also guarantees our future: God promises us that we’re always his, no matter what, and will always be with him. But I think that few of us understand that the future promise of new life means something for our lives today, right now. God’s grace-filled promises of new life in the future open up new possibilities for our lives now. More forcefully stated: God’s grace provokes a response from us, one in which we are no longer to present ourselves as instruments of sin, but rather to present ourselves as instruments of righteousness.

In his book, Out of the Blue, former LA Dodgers baseball star Orel Hershiser talks about his inauspicious beginning as a pitcher and a conversation he had with manager Tommy Lasorda. After another lackluster outing, Hershiser was called to Lasorda’s office where he received a much-deserved dressing down. But he also received a surprising speech from the manager. Lasorda told Hershiser that he believed Hershiser had the stuff to be great, that he wouldn’t have brought him up to the big leagues otherwise. Lasorda said that Hershiser was being too tentative and that he needed to attack the batters, to be a bulldog out on the mound. In fact, in a stroke of genius that surprised even Lasorda, the manager gave him that nickname. The next time Hershiser was brought in to pitch, Lasorda yelled at him from the dugout, “Come on, Bulldog. You can do it.” Hershiser pitched out of the jam and started to live into his identity as a fierce competitor. Hershiser went on to lead the Dodgers to several pennants and championships while winning numerous awards for himself.

In our baptisms into Christ’s death, we have died to sin and have been raised to new life in him and are to offer ourselves as instruments of righteousness to be used by God. Offering ourselves as instruments to God for God’s use is scary. When Philip Melanchthon wrote to his teacher, Martin Luther, because he was fearful about making decisions, Luther told him to “sin boldly.” Then he added, “So that you may believe all the more boldly still. You see, in this new baptismal life we don’t have to be used by God; we get to be used by God.

Today we are recognizing those who have responded to their baptismal call and stepped out in faith, who have offered themselves as instruments of righteousness. We are also recognizing our high school seniors who are continuing on that baptismal journey in other places and ways. To all of us I would ask that we simply remember that one last thing: living out our baptism is not a “one and done” event. Rather, it is a daily dying and rising. When we stumble and fall, through our baptism we die to the brokenness and rise to a new opportunity to serve God and others. To remind us of that, I invite you to dip your hands in the water as you come forward to Holy Communion. Amen.